1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to mass transfer processes and more particularly to methods and devices for performing mass transfer including capturing and adsorbing substances.
2. Background Information
The utilization of mass transfer processes to perform various process steps in manufacturing is a key feature in many technological areas. For example, adsorption of a material over a solid adsorbent is one common unit separation process that is widely used in various industries. One basic problem with many of these processes is the quantity of mass transfer throughout and hydrodynamic limitations. The steps that must be undertaken in many instances over come these limitations significantly reduces the efficiency of such processes, and in some instances create additional problems that must be dealt with. For example, in some applications reducing particle sizes to attempt to increase surface area for activity, drastically increases the pressure drop, which in turn requires more energy to raise the pressure again to operate the process. Thus, in some applications the cost of operating the system may render the system too expensive to justify its use.
In other embodiments, various engineering steps taken to over come these shortcoming may so reduce the effective throughput of the system so as to render the process too slow for effective or widespread implementation. These problems are particularly pronounced when the adsorption is used to deal with a large volume of process streams or to conduct separation problems wherever energy efficiency becomes critical. This is a particular problem in process such as carbon dioxide capture and sequestration wherein effective means to reduce pollutants and increase efficiency are of major global import. The other adsorption-related applications include air separation for production of O2 or N2, water removal from process streams, removal of pollutants from process streams to be discharged into environments, and industrial process separation.
What is needed therefore is a system and method for performing mass transfer processes such as adsorption and capture that offers a solution to these long-term dilemmas, and offers an efficient (both capital and energy) and useful method for performing these functions. The present invention meets these needs.
Additional advantages and novel features of the present invention will be set forth as follows and will be readily apparent from the descriptions and demonstrations set forth herein. Accordingly, the following descriptions of the present invention should be seen as illustrative of the invention and not as limiting in any way.